


Crocodiles

by Sangerin



Category: Press Gang
Genre: Community: 40fandoms, Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 08:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've always been able to do everything.</p><p>(I wouldn't normally warn for angst, but this seemed darker than average when I was writing it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crocodiles

You've always been able to do everything. Everything that you wanted to do, anyway, and what you couldn't do, didn't matter. Things like having people like you, instead of being scared of you, keeping a boyfriend for longer than three weeks – the fact that you couldn't do it was proof enough that they weren't important things to do.

Even when things went wrong, there was a switch, somewhere, and if you could just find the switch and flick it, everything would settle back into place, and Colin would go back into his office and stop thinking he could run the paper. It's always worked that way. Find the switch, turn yourself back into yourself.

So what do you do when the switch goes missing? When the days run into each other in their bleakness, and there generally doesn't seem to be any point to anything? When you wonder whether anyone would notice if you were gone, whether they'd nod sagely and say they'd always known, but hadn't cared enough; or whether there would be recriminations – did no one notice, think to ask, push past the "I'm fine"'s and "Don't worry"'s? 

You list the people who would care: Mum, Spike. The list is too short, and shorter when you cross Spike off, add Kenny then scrub out his name too. You're sitting in an empty newsroom with a list of people who care about you, only except for your Mum, the list is empty, too.

You had a choice, somewhere along the line. Everyone has a choice. So why didn't you make a choice to flick that switch; why didn't you recognise that things were going wrong, and find that switch inside you that would make it all better? Your choice, your problem.

Only now you can't find the switch, and more than that, you can't find a reason to go looking for it, whatever and wherever it is.

It took Spike, last time. But you've crossed him off your list. And he's crossed you off his.

You used to be able to do everything. It didn't used to matter that there was no one around. Why does it matter now? Why does it feel like you're standing in the middle of a black hole, when you're no different than you used to be, only a few years older? Why are there so many more questions than answers?

You made a choice: that you had to do everything alone. That the paper was more important than friendships. That life was too short, that the world would penalise you for asking for help. That you could survive on your own.

So what's the next choice? Sink lower and lower, almost without realising it? Struggling only makes you sink deeper in the quicksand. End it, here and now. No more struggling, no more sinking. Just nothingness.

Or forget the quicksand metaphor, and take just one tiny step up out of there, and another and then another. That list of people who care just might be longer than you think. Don't you owe it to yourself to at least try? Face the fact that it's not going to be easy, that the magic switch just isn't there right now, that it's going to take hard work. 

You can do everything, remember?


End file.
